DFO breaking own policy, failing to protect cod stock: Oceana Canada

Although Fisheries and Oceans Canada announced this week it will close the Atlantic cod fishery on the Scotian Shelf and in the Bay of Fundy, it plans to keep allowable bycatch levels at 825 tonnes, which critics say violates the department’s own policy to keep all sources of fishing mortality as low as possible and hampers the endangered species’ chances of recovering.

“This stock is so illustrative of the chronic problem of not following the policy,” said Robert Rangeley, director of science with Oceana Canada.

“It’s good policy.”

He said the department (DFO) has failed to follow its own precautionary framework and take adequate action, despite identifying bycatch as a problem in a 2011 recovery potential assessment.

Bycatch is sea life that’s unintentionally caught in nets and lines while fishing for a specific species, known as a directed fishery. A directed fishery is defined as 50 per cent or greater of what was intended to be caught, which means up to 49 per cent of it can be bycatch.

Every year around the world, an estimated 10.3 million tonnes of sea life are unintentionally caught. Because bycatch is a byproduct, those fish, shellfish, corals, sponges, marine mammals, seabirds, sharks and sea turtles are tossed, dead or dying, back into the water. Given how the ocean is struggling in the face of pollution and climate change, scientists say bycatch poses a real ecological threat.

“As for the 825 tonnes of bycatch, that’s what DFO says is allowed to be harvested. We don’t know — by their own admission — how much is actually being taken out,” Rangeley said.

That’s because the limit only applies to lucrative groundfish fisheries like halibut and haddock. It doesn’t account for what’s likely a significant amount of cod caught in the lobster fishery. Although the department said in 2011 that it should be measuring this, DFO’s rebuilding plan states that cod bycatch will not be accurately estimated and included in assessments until 2023.

Although this stock has been in the critical zone for more than a decade, DFO also still has no reliable estimates of discards or sources of natural mortality. While seals are one source, Rangeley said the department doesn’t know — by its own admission — the degree to which seals contribute to the natural mortality of the cod.

“Its very clear in Canada, especially in Atlantic Canada, that there are inconsistencies in how our fisheries are monitored. There are no national standards, the level of monitoring is low and catch statistics are known to be unreliable, under-sampled and under-represented.”

DFO has drafted a fishery monitoring policy, but it hasn’t been implemented. The department also has a bycatch policy that should be dealing with this, but that hasn’t been implemented yet either.

“When I say this goes against their own policies, there’s a whole suite of them,” Rangeley said.

Allowable cod bycatch has been at this level since 2016, when the stock, while very low, appeared to stabilize after years of decline.

“There was an opportunity (in 2011) to recover and get it past the critical point by 2020 if they had cut the quota,” Rangeley said.

Instead, he added, “It took them over four years to act.”

In addition to having trouble getting fisheries monitors on board boats, he said, none of the measures that might help reduce bycatch, such as separator trawls, are mandatory. Their use remains voluntary. Nor are there area closures at different times and in different places to avoid higher amounts of bycatch.

Other jurisdictions have had great success monitoring fisheries using video cameras. Rangeley said while not everyone likes them, they seem to be the way fisheries need to go if the data needed is to be collected.

“They’re not requiring any of these things. They’re not trying to innovate. There’s no sense of urgency,” he said.

“I know they’re in a bind and I know the fisherman have to focus on making money on lucrative stocks. But DFO can’t give up on these fisheries. That’s why we have to push for regulating plans that are strong and effective with timelines and actions.”

Asked about the lack of enthusiasm to mandate measures to reduce bycatch, the department said in a statement that Canadian fisheries are managed in a way that supports sustainable harvest and minimizes the risk of causing serious or irreversible harm to bycatch species.

It noted that discarding cod is not permitted, and both at-sea observers and dockside observers are used in groundfish fisheries that intercept cod. Additional monitoring will begin next month to ensure directed fishing for cod is not taking place.

“Because the quota has been reduced to a very low level, fish harvesters must fish in a way that keeps cod bycatch low as well, which may include changing where and when they fish, or by voluntarily using gear such as separator trawls or larger hooks,” said DFO spokesman Barre Campbell.

Asked if the department is in a position to monitor bycatch, he said monitoring programs are required as a condition of a licence, and that last year at-sea data collection was put in place to measure bycatch across lobster fishing areas within the zone where Atlantic cod can now no longer be caught.

Campbell said DFO is also developing a rebuilding plan for the stock “that will consider all practical actions” to promote its recovery.

The cod quota in this area has been reduced by 70 per cent since 2010, including a 50 per cent reduction in 2015. The department said the groundfish industry “has managed to keep catches below this level in recent years.”

Despite the cuts in quota, however, a stock assessment late last year confirmed the cod remain “at a very low level.” DFO said given current levels of productivity, “there is a high probability that the stock will continue to decline, even in the absence of fishing.”

“The recommended management measures were to keep catches as low as possible and improve monitoring of cod catches across all fisheries,” Campbell said.

DFO said last year’s assessment noted that estimates of mortality from fishing since 2015 have been the lowest on record since the time series began in 1982.

As for its fishing monitoring policy, consultations have been held on the draft and that feedback is now being reviewed to ensure the final product sets clear objectives for programs and clear expectations for fisherman.

Rangeley said there was a time when Atlantic cod supported massive fisheries that fuelled economies and fed millions. Today, most cod stocks are in a critical state, with some headed towards local extinction. The longer concrete and mandatory measures are put off, the more likely that becomes and the tougher it gets to come back.

“The further you go into this critical zone, the harder it is to put in measures to rebuild and the more costly they are. You get to the point where you give up or stop,” he said.

“The writing is on the wall and it has been for some time. If they had acted (earlier), we might be looking at a completely different story today. Instead, they fail to act and then they blame the seals.”